The Global Social Network
Vast majority of Indians, including those who oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi, believe that nuclear war is "winnable", according to the results of a Stimson Center poll released recently. They want their country to build a bigger nuclear arsenal than China and …
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on August 18, 2022 at 5:00pm — 24 Comments
Among 10 countries with the estimated net outflow of migrants exceeding 1 million over the period from 2010 through 2021, Pakistan saw 16.5 million migrants move overseas, the highest in the world, according to a report titled "World Population Prospects 2022" released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). …
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on July 17, 2022 at 4:00pm — 6 Comments
The US and its allies enjoy a significant technological advantage over China and Russia. The Chinese are working hard to catch up but the West is not standing still. It is making huge investments in research and development to maintain this edge as it becomes increasingly clear that the outcome of the ongoing international geopolitical competition will largely be determined by technology. …
Added by Riaz Haq on April 13, 2022 at 7:53am — 74 Comments
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will no longer fabricate computer chips for Russia, according to media reports. The ban will particularly affect Russia's Elbrus and Baikal processors, unless China agrees to step in to manufacture these chips, and risk additional US sanctions itself. Both Russian processors use mature 28 nm technology. The world's most advanced TSMC fabrication…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on March 23, 2022 at 8:30am — 18 Comments
India's leaders and their western boosters have been promoting the country as an emerging superpower to counter rising China. They cite the size of India's economy, demography, military and consumer market to back up their assertions. These claims are challenged by India's former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman, former head of IMF in India, in an article titled "India's Size Illusion". In a similar article titled "The Chinese Threat No One Is Talking About — And…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on March 18, 2022 at 1:00pm — 23 Comments
Russia is a commodities superpower. The nation's Eurasian landmass is rich in all kinds of natural resources from food to fuel to metals. To punish Moscow for invading Ukraine, the US and G-7 nations have imposed sanctions on Russia. These sanctions have effectively removed Russian commodities from the global…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on March 12, 2022 at 8:00am — 56 Comments
Pakistani-American banker Yawar Shah is the Chairman of the SWIFT Board of Directors. SWIFT stands for The Society For Inter-Bank Financial Telecommunications. SWIFT has been in the news recently for cutting off Russian banks to punish Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia is now disconnected from the global financial system used to settle the vast majority of payments in international…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on March 1, 2022 at 9:30am — 21 Comments
Pakistan, the world's sixth most populous nation, ranked 18th in the number of students studying in the United States. Pakistani students enrolled in the US fell by 5.8% to 7,475 in 2020-21, significantly less than the 15% drop in international student enrollment. However, number of Pakistanis studying in the US in 2020-21 was even less than students from much smaller nations like Nepal which ranked 12th. Overall, …
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on February 22, 2022 at 11:30am — 1 Comment
The World Economic Forum forecasts that Pakistan will rise to become the world's 7th largest consumer market by 2030. Nearly 60 million Pakistanis will join the consumer class (consumers spending more than $11 per day) to raise the country's consumer market rank from 15 to 7 in the next 10 years. WEF forecasts the world's top 10 consumer markets of 2030 to be as follows: China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Pakistan, Japan, Egypt and Mexico. Global investors chasing…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on December 11, 2021 at 9:00am — 16 Comments
China has agreed to invest $3.5 billion in Karachi, according to Pakistani and Chinese officials. In a separate announcement earlier, Saudi Arabia said it is moving its planned $10 billion petrochemical complex from Gwadar to Karachi. These announcements have triggered speculation that the focus of development of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is moving from Gwadar to Karachi. …
Added by Riaz Haq on October 7, 2021 at 6:30pm — 27 Comments
Pakistan exported $38 million worth of denim clothing to the United States in July, 2021. This figure represents 140% growth over July, 2020. Mexico's denim exports grew 58% while those of Bangladesh grew 24% in this period, according to the US Office of Textiles and Apparel. …
Added by Riaz Haq on October 5, 2021 at 11:00am — 20 Comments
In the recently announced AUKUS alliance, the US has joined the United Kingdom to arm Australia with nuclear-powered submarines to check China's rise. This announcement has not only upset the Chinese but it has also enraged France. The French are angry because AUKUS has scuttled Australia's earlier agreement to purchase diesel-powered submarines from France. …
Added by Riaz Haq on September 18, 2021 at 11:00am — 28 Comments
Afghanistan is rich! The world's "poorest country" is known to have trillions of dollars worth of rare earths and other minerals buried underground. Rare earths are essential for the global supply chain of the technology industry. They are considered a "critical resource" for US national security. …
Added by Riaz Haq on September 13, 2021 at 11:00am — 8 Comments
Kishore Mahbubani, a prolific writer, speaker and former Singaporean diplomat, believes that the western domination of the world over the last 200 years is "aberrant" when seen in the context of the last several thousand years of human history. In his book "Has China Won", he writes that "we are also moving away from a black-and-white world". "Societies in different parts of the world, including in China and …
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on August 9, 2021 at 7:30am — 48 Comments
Many fear the return to civil war in Afghanistan after the US pull-out. Are these fears well-founded? If so, who will be the main combatants in such a civil war? The Afghan Taliban? Or notorious warlords of yesteryears like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Ismael Khan, Abdur Rashid Dostum and progeny of Ahmad Shah Masood? Or terror groups like ISIS, TTP, ETIM, IMU, etc etc.? …
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on July 25, 2021 at 4:30pm — 37 Comments
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded one hundred years ago on July 1, 1921. The party has transformed China from a poor and backward third world country into a vibrant and prosperous industrialized economy. This rapid historic transformation has surprised everyone, including China's friends, but especially its western foes who now see the emergence of the Asian giant as a challenge to centuries-long western domination of the world. It has also earned the CCP high levels of…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on July 2, 2021 at 9:30am — 38 Comments
American Defense publication "The Drive" claims that Pakistan has helped China get access to American stealth aircraft technology. Specifically, the American website alleges that the Pakistanis gave Chinese access to the wreckage of the US stealth helicopter destroyed during the American raid to kill Usama Bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2011. Chinese experts have called the accusation "groundless", according to Global Times. …
ContinueIn a recently published fiction imagined for 2034 by former top US Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman, China and the United States go to war that ends in India's victory. The authors portray Indians as heroes whose statesmen-ship de-escalates World War III, negotiates peace and helps India emerge as the new global superpower. Patel, the Indian uncle of the Indian-American deputy national…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on April 29, 2021 at 11:00am — 76 Comments
The results of a test called "Supertest", developed by researchers from the US, China, Russia and India,, show that Indian engineering students perform very poorly relative to their peers in other countries. Supertest is the first study to track the progress of students in computer science and electrical engineering over the course of their studies with regard to their abilities in physics, mathematics and critical thinking and compare the results among four countries.
Supertest…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on March 4, 2021 at 1:00pm — 5 Comments
China's central bank is testing its digital currency in several major Chinese cities. The chairman of US Federal Reserve has recently confirmed that the US Central Bank is working on digital dollar. The State Bank of Pakistan announced in 2019 that it was developing a digital currency. It seems that the popularity of Bitcoin has triggered serious worries of loss of control of the official financial systems among the central bankers around the world. China's substantial lead in digital…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on March 1, 2021 at 8:30am — 31 Comments
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South Asia Investor Review
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In a campaign speech on May 1, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi bragged about his campaign of transnational assassinations of individuals he has labeled "terrorists". “Today, India doesn't send dossiers to the masters of terrorism, but gives them a dose and kills them on their home turf", he is reported to have said, according to a tweet posted by his BJP party. Last…
ContinuePosted by Riaz Haq on May 3, 2024 at 5:09pm — 2 Comments
Samsung is seeing strong demand for its locally assembled Galaxy S24 smartphones and tablets in Pakistan, according to Bloomberg. The company said it is struggling to meet demand. Pakistan’s mobile phone industry produced 21 million handsets while its smartphone imports surged over 100% in the last fiscal year, according to …
ContinuePosted by Riaz Haq on April 26, 2024 at 7:09pm
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